Restraining Government in America and Around the World

Taxpayers Get Screwed

Since politicians get to spend other people’s money, and use that process to raise campaign cash and buy votes, there is no limit to the stupid things they are willing to fund. The new study on condom use is merely the latest example. Foxnew.com has the details:

The federal government is spending $423,500 to find out why men don’t like to wear condoms, a project government watchdogs say is a nearly-half-a-million-dollar waste of taxpayer money. Researchers at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, are investigating why “young, heterosexual adult men” have problems using condoms. The study will include “skill-based intervention” to teach grown men how to use protection. …it has government watchdogs rolling their eyes at what they say is a clear waste of taxpayer money. “This government is so out of whack with what the priorities are that this actually makes sense that we’d be wasting money on a condom study rather than the real problems facing the country,” said David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste, which tracks wasteful spending in the federal budget. For American men — many of whom have already undergone years of awkward sex ed in the care of gym teachers — the study might not offer much of a boost, Williams said.

[…] Every so often, we see stories about absurd waste, such as the $423,000 study to find out that men don’t like to wear condoms, the Pentagon spending $900 on a $7 control switch, or a $100,000 library grant to a city without a […]